


Anodized Memories

by wede_fic (frahulettaes)



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frahulettaes/pseuds/wede_fic
Summary: Space opera. Renegade Military!Jensen, Straight Up Military!Jared. Pretty much everyone's fair game. Mostly Cwrps, lots of OMC's. Everything and the kitchen sink. So to speak.WIP amnesty
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Kudos: 4





	Anodized Memories

2281, Xant Mellous made a mistake wiring his experimental drive. 

He was twenty-two and while he was the smartest drive scientist in what was left of Sweden, he totally missed what happened. He didn’t document it. To his mind, it hadn’t happened. He was so close, he couldn’t see it. 

His lab on Station Oslo twenty-five miles above the earth was cramped and cluttered. His test ship, Orn, was sleek and fine. All of his research grant money had gone into her frame and plating. Into her wiring and bio-nav’s. 

September 21st, 2281, ten after eight in the morning, he finished programming the bio-nav’s, plugged in his neural jack, used the impulse engines and floated out from the dock. 

What happened next was the subject of much speculation. Those stationed on the decks said that one minute, The Orn was there floating back from the arm of the station and the next she was just gone. Some said there was a flash. Some said it looked like the Orn had been sucked into a hole the size of a cup of coffee. 

Off the record and after a few drinks, those who’d actually seen it would only look bleak, eyes shifting away.

Twenty-eight days later the Orn re-appeared in exactly the place she’d disappeared. She was weathered, old, cracked in places. By all rights she should not have been flying.

No one could believe it. 

The docksider’s crowded in as the shuttles brought Orn into the main hangar. People jostled for place around the portal, waiting. 

When Xant opened the door, people gasped. He was ten years older. And he had stories to tell.

There’d been a mistake that changed everything. 

Now a days, people, human people, knew it was called a Xant Drive but most didn’t know anything about Xant Mellous. Or the Orn. People only knew that there had been a small planet in the outer reach that they’d come from. They’d long since learned that they weren’t the most advance nor the smartest nor the oldest sentient beings in their Galaxy or that their Galaxy had long since been named and not by human tongues or voices. 

They’d found their small place in the greater scheme of the Oya Reach. 

But that place was about to change. 

~*~

Blue. 

Like light, but whiter, that smelled dry. 

Metallic.

It tasted strange, and wide. As though his spine had opened, like a zipper, and the lens of his awareness had telescoped out wide, impossibly, unimaginably, to a vastness that shut out thought. 

Sound like the hum of a Xant drive, a tremor, but distinct. Each particle a voice. A color. Vibrating. 

He fell.

Up into the swirling gas of Oyan Central, orange and heaving, so close he could touch it with the tips of his...he’d forgotten the word. 

He trembled.

The voices, their cadence weaving through him made him dizzy, nauseous, and he closed his eyes, wishing he was back into his form, back into the tiny fragment of flesh he knew. 

He woke. 

~*~

Oyan Arm, Inner Reach, Oyan Prime, Star Oiyelle. M-time 2rd Month, 10th Day..

“Where is it now?” Oya-oea folded the thick parchment carefully, corners precise. It laid the package on the stones, movements graceful, slow, the folds of its silken fabric rustling and flowing with each measured movement.

“Oya-oea, Bellar Seconda, Giya Arm, L'ser. We believe it is safe.” Oya-l'ell said, eyes lowered respectfully.

L'ser Oya-oea considered the words. Time was growing short. Oyan Oiyelle's triple suns were slipping to the horizon, casting the chamber in shades of lavender and purple, setting the L'ser's robes alight, shining, iridescent. The L'ser knew Oya-l'ell would stand until it spoke. Would stand into the night, silent, waiting. It wished that it had that much time. It regretted that it didn't.

“L'ser Oya-L'ell, it is time. Past time.” the L'ser spoke quietly and Oya-L'ell tensed at the name change.

“L'ser.” it whispered, awed. “Ships will be launching at Moonset. I'm honored.” Oya-L'ell bowed low, gowns brushing the stones.

The L'ser turned from the portal.

“Rise, L'ser. Raise your eyes.” L'ser said.

Oya-L'ell, now L'ser, lifted its chin and gazed at his L'ser. It knew what would happen, had trained a lifetime to receive the gift, but the shock of the gift swept through it and it gasped. They were connected now. It was one with all L'ser. Moments passed and the swirl of thoughts, emotions, memories, the life of all Oyan, swelled, crested and settled in its mind and heart.

It looked down at it's hands, eyes wide with wonder. Its skin gone from mottled sage and lilac to opalescent white. It was done.

Oya-L'ell knew the touch was coming, would have known the L'ser anywhere now, no matter how distant, but the touch still startled. The L'ser's fingers were warm and light on the skin of it's shoulder. The first of touches. It was not enough to finish the bond, but it would have to do for now.

The L'ser was beautiful, Oyo-L'ell thought. It wanted to complete, but it sensed the urgency, knew immediately the peril of waiting and nodded, lips thinning.

“When you return, L'ell, this will be complete.” L'ser murmured, voice a warm rasp across L'ell's ears.

“Yes, Oea.” L'ell said.

“Do not fail, L'ell.” Oea whispered, hand tightening, eyes intense.

L'ell returned the gaze without fear.

“No, Oea.” And it knew its words were true.

~*~

Giya Arm, Outer Reach, Gama System, Star Mislane. M-time 3rd Month, 19th Day.

Military Axons were not roomy. Built for speed and maneuverability, they didn't bristle with guns like the portly Orons or the massive colony class ships. They crewed eight soldiers, all marines with double class ratings, pilots plus weapons, some Intel and a couple of headers complete with neural-jacks. One mechanic, usually, but not always. They were meant to work out of colony ships and destroyers. Not so far from home that they couldn't get service if need be.

Axon's Vengeance was sixteen weeks into a four-week mission, running low on all but air, morale gone to hell. They were down two men in the ass end of Giya, limping towards Mislane, tail between their legs.

Jared had looked at supply lists so long he was sure piracy was cheaper and hoped the Axon's credits were good this far out in the arm. He let his head drop to the console and rolled his face on the cool, glassy surface, eyes closed. Milo and Zac gone, their bodies wrapped and put out the airlock on the wrong side of Bellar Seconda, no space to bring them home.

Chad's voice on the sync brought him out of his ruminations, back to now, with too thin air and not enough sleep.

“We are minus thirty and closing, two clicks, berth forty-two, cleared.” Chad informed them.

Jared slapped the sync for Chad's personal channel.

“Thank fuck for that. Get us hooked up. Use priority if you have to.” He closed the channel and pushed up from the console, tried to find his least offensive unwashed suit, jammed his sync in his pocket and made for the bridge.

He didn't even look at the crew, couldn't really, just growled at them. “Get off the ship. Don't come back for three cycles.” A shuffle of feet and bodies and breathing and they were gone. He looked up. Chad was looking at him. Jared frowned.

“What part of get the fuck off the ship don't you get, Murray? Go. That's an order.” Jared braced his arm on the arch of the bridge door and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Chad sighed and shifted his weight. “We need crew, Jared. Bad.”

Jared marveled a little at Chad's reserve. Remembered the Chad of three months ago all annoying swagger and endless asshounding. But damned, he was right.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just,” he paused, exhaustion swamping him. “Go, Chad. Get fucked,you deserve it. Don't show your face here before Third. And not the one in an hour, the one three cycles from now.” His smile failed and Chad nodded, turned and slipped around him and down the corridor. Jared watched the dockside cam to make sure he was gone. There was no swagger in Chad's walk, his image small in black and white, receding into the dockside crowd.

He shut the ship down, checked the dockside sync, hit approve on everything without reading any of it and turned it off. Hit reserve power, made sure the fuel coupling was secure and left the bridge, voice-locking it as he went.

Time to breath some station air.

~*~

Mislane really was the ass end of the universe, let alone Giya. Chad scrolled through the list of profiles on the sync, Aran's tawny frame leaning casually against the sync's doorway.

“Anything?” Aran rumbled, eyes flicking across the crowds at station center.

“Gods, it's slim. Docksiders and movers mostly. Two felinoids, five Garions, and one human with weapons and piloting. Otherwise we'll have to train them.” Chad tapped the screen, choosing those he'd mentioned.

Chad talked to himself as he worked through the profiles. Garions are out. There couldn't afford the translator and the ship wasn't rigged for methane breathers. They were good navigators and lethal warriors, but the Vengeance couldn't support them and frankly, they couldn't take time to retrofit. That left the felinoids and the human. The felinoids were a mated pair, females. Trained in small craft piloting and certified as shippers. Maybe not weapons trained, but docksmart enough to help in a fight. He shut the Garions’ pages and minimized the felinoids.

The human was another story altogether. Docker Sync showed him with with interstellar certs in pilot and nav with extensive weapons training. But out here that had to be a lie. No one that qualified got stuck out here, those types were snapped up by Colony Class the second they hit space. He dragged the profile to his hand sync and ran it through the Axon database. The DNA and retinal would reveal all there was to know about the profile right down to his blood type and sperm count. His handset pinged, the profile popping up on the station sync.

A cascade of images files opened across the screen, most recent on top. Chad whistled and Aran turned into box to look over his shoulder.

“What the,” Chad breathed. Aran growled low in his throat.

“That's where Jackal washed up?” Aran murmured. “This changes things. Call Jared. Now.”

Aran set his sync against the public display and transferred the data to his handset. Chad did the same and cut the public display back out to the home page.

“I'll radio when I find him.” He growled and disappeared into the dockside traffic. Chad nodded, pocketed the sync and headed up station to find his Captain.

~*~

Giya Arm, Outer Reach, Gama System, Star Mislane. M-time 3rd Month, 20th Day.

Secondshift alarm cranked and he rolled over, a tight, practiced move in the barrel of this sleep pod, the heel of his palm smacked the panel's indented surface. He didn't have to set the alarm, not anymore. He hadn't worked in longer than he cared to think about. Not honest work, anyway. But he got up every Second, made himself sanitize and hauled ass down to the Baseside Docks in time for the outsystem read outs to make it to the station syncs.

He popped the access to his pod and dropped down, deck shoes on plating, and shivered in the icy station air. Checked his access, grabbed his clothes and made his way down to the shared sanitizer. He'd never liked them. Shut in, no escape and no way to tell what he'd open the door to, made him nervous. Made him clench his scarred hand, flexing for a pistol long gone. Still, he stank and the sanitizer was free with the room. About the only thing that was.

In the sanitizer/transition/back in pod/getting out foods.

Food was the last thing on his mind, his stomach too shredded, but he made himself choke down a nutrient packet and swallowed half a bottle of water. He fought to keep it down, eyes squeezed shut, swallowing frantically. It was a solid minute before he could open them again, his fist a tight knot on the bulkhead. He pulled the last suit out and slipped it on, remembered when it used to fit, used to be snug. Been a while since that was true.

~*~

Three tiers between his green level pod and the docks now busy with Secondshift traffic. It was mostly instation folks to and froming, some crew, grifters, a few whores. He tried not to pass Harlin's on the way down but sometimes he couldn't help it. The arch was lit, even this early in Second, and Harlin was in his way before he remembered that. He was a big man, big enough with Jensen as weak as he was to stop him. Harlin squared him up against the synthcrete, pressed up close from chest to knee, slid one leg between Jensen’s, hand coming up and cupping the square of his jaw. Harlin smiled.

“Jensen.” he hummed a rolling chuckle, rich and dirty. His breath was fetid.

“Got a space for you, right up front.” He punctuated the low grumble of his words with a press of his hips, thigh riding up into Jensen's balls and cock. It was meant to tease, to humiliate, but Jensen had been down too long, was too on edge and he twisted, bringing his leg around, swinging it down into Harlin's knee, elbowed up into Harlin's neck, sending him heavy to the decking, Jensen straddling his waist, elbow to his throat.

Harlin laughed.

“Stop flirting, boy. No need to impress me.” He grabbed Jensen's wrist, fingers tight, mouth in a hungry smile.

“Pretty little thing like you. All fight or flight.” He sucked in his lower lip on a hungry gasp. “Might just have to break you in though. Like to fuck some of that pride out of you.”

Jensen's elbow pressed down and Harlin's eyes bulge a little before hands pulled at him, grabbed his arms and manhandled him upright. He struggled. Someone was talking to him, pulled his arm again, dragged him away. Images swam in his head, Harlin's sweaty face, his breath, his imagined weight, his cock breaching resisting muscle. His stomach churned at the imagined assault and he staggered in the circle of arms behind him. They tightened. The voice in his ear snapped into clarity.

“Jensen, Jensen, stop. Stop fighting. Stop, boy, stop.” The voice was dark, like Harlin's, deep, rumbly but not brutal, not teasing.

“Jensen, Jensen.” Lips move almost touching his ear. The arms tightened. His breath came in ragged huffs, fingers clenched.

“Boy, Jensen. Stop.” The voice got lower, calmer. His breathing slowed. “That's it. Breathe, boy. That's good.”

Jensen looked down at the decking, let the dizziness fade, felt the hot weight behind him, the arms holding him strong, stronger than human, the hair short and tawny. He nodded and brought his hands up, lightly clasping the felinoid's wrists. He wanted to say thank you, to say _something_ but his voice was trapped in a resisting throat. He swallowed, nodded, realized he was shaking.

One of Harlin's boys helped the man up and they swaggered back across the decking to the broad, arched opening of the whore house. They stopped at the entrance and Harlin swung the boy around, back to Jensen, and dragged him in, hands on his ass, pressed in a parody of their embrace moments ago, Harlin's eyes on Jensen, dark and hungry. He kissed the whore, dug his fingers in the swell of ass inside the sheer deck suit, ground his hips, pushing the fabric in towards the boy's hole.

Jensen gagged, and the felinoid released him enough to drag him back, pull him away down the decking towards the docks. Harlin's laughter followed them.

~*~

Doors blurred by, the felinoid’s gate was longer and faster than his, and he tumbled along, tripping, trying to keep up. His mouth tasted metallic, the adrenalin leaving him shaking and nauseous. He only realized where they were headed when the cold blast of dockside air hit him square in the face. He got his feet under him and started to jog, tugged at his arm, felt the tawny cat's fingers tighten and he grimaced at the hold.

“Almost there, hold on.” The cat rumbled.

Jensen felt his stomach drop. 

He stumbled, narrowly missing a loader filled with containers, would have fallen but for the Cat’s hold on him and their speed kept him upright. 

Only a couple of reasons for heading dockside, none of them good. Not if his luck was as bad as it'd been. A few months ago, hell, even weeks, he'd've laid the cat out. Even now, he wanted to fight, wanted to put up some sort of defense, but he was tired. Drained. He wasn’t strong enough to pull away, hadn't eaten in too long. Now, all he could feel was weary resignation.

He was grateful when they finally stopped. Tawny fingers growled the gangway password and the door snicked open. Jensen glanced at the reader and got a name: Axon's Vengeance. The name sent a frisson of fear through him. A military Axon. He wanted to scream. He pulled, but the cat was stronger.

“No. No. I'm all right. I'm good.” Jensen babbled, his pulling turning frantic. “Please, please.” He clutched his hand tight, the scar tissue an agonizing pull across ragged tendons. He thought he smelled smoke, the light a canned blue, the ship's air dry and powdery. He blinked the flash of a remembered sonic granade out of his eyes and swung, panicked and wild.

The felinoid turned lightening fast, dropped his elbow, made a fist and punched Jensen in the head, putting him mercifully out of his misery. 

~*~

Thand had been a shipper his whole life, never once set foot planet side and proud of it. He was space born and bred and he’d shipped all through both Giya and Ona arms, inner and outer and once into Thelan Arm to deal with the methane breathers. He wore his years well though now and then, in the right light, he could see his middle years coming to a close. 

Mislane was not his least favorite port, but it was close. He didn’t care. The work was solid so he drove the lifter into the gaping bulk of his ship and began shifting their load dockside. He backed the lifter out gently and swung the racks toward the pallets and nearly smacked into a Cat dragging some sorry excuse of a spacer across the deck. This part of the arm saw it’s fair share of press-gangs though he didn’t really expect to see it in broad Secondshift, but...but. The spacer tumbled by, nearly going down but for the Cat’s tight grip on his suit. 

He knew that face. 

And he knew someone who was looking for it.

~*~

Chad found Jared drunk on C Deck in a bar that by all rights should have been closed a century before. Jared's head was down on the table but the cut of his shoulders was unmistakable, impossibly broad even in their defeated droop. Chad palmed his sync and called for help.

"Kessell, do you read me?" He murmured.

There was a staticky moment and then the familiar rumble of the felinoids' snarled basic came back.

"Here, Murray."

Chad slipped his arm under Jared's and began to heave him out of the chair. Jared's head lolled onto his shoulder.

"Damned stupid ass, drunk here, get your damned self killed." Chad mumbled. He clicked the sync one handed. 

"I'm on C Deck." he looked for the bar's name as he made his way out, patrons looking on, wary. "Basto Bar. Got my position?" He struggled with Jared's weight and the sync, shrugging to get Jared more firmly onto his shoulder.

"Got you. On my way." Kessell said and clicked off. 

Chad propped Jared against the wall, pressing his weight on the Captain to keep him from falling while he pocketed the sync. 

Minutes later the big felinoid slipped under Jared's other arm and between them they carried Jared up the gangway towards the docks. 

~*~

“Kane” Christian barked into the sync. 

“Nice to hear your voice, Kane.” Thand said, his face fuzzy and indistinct.

“Thand.” Christian said, tone a bit milder. “Didn’t expect to hear you this far out in the arm. What in Hells are you doing out this way?”

“Plain old ordinary work. Honest and forthright.” Thand said, a teasing smile in his voice.

“I bet.” Christian said, just as sarcastic. 

“Fact is, think I may have seen summat you’re lookin’ for. Think you might of been looking for this item for a good long while. And as I remember it, you might have been willing to pay a credit or two for this thing.” Thand shifted his weight and glanced over his shoulder.

Christian sat up straight and still at his console, poised. Thand leaned closer to the sync and popped a disk into the reader. Christian could see the tops of his knuckles in frame and a second later, gone. A screen popped up, old style, across his console, grainy and colorless. It was a shipside security vid. He watched the lifter back out of the hull and the racks swing wide and toward the dock narrowly missing two figures. 

One was a Cat. A very particular one. One he knew well. Aran. Axon’s Vengeance.

The other one was Jensen.

~*~  
It always started the same. 

Blue. Light like a blast of white and a dry, canned coldness. And he couldn’t turn it off. It was a dream. His thinking mind knew that. 

He felt the opening, the widening of his awareness, and fought to stay inside himself. 

Light became taste and the voices, the roar of the voices cascaded through him, shimmering and chaotic. 

His hand came up, a warding. His fingers spread. The scar ached a dull throb down his arm. He turned it, palm towards himself, and his eyes widened.

The skin opened, burned, scar tissue tearing.

Light.

~*~

Giya Arm, Outer Reach, Gama System, Star Bellar Seconda. M-time 3rd Month, 20th Day.

Oyanea slid through space, mind adrift on a long, banking solar wind. It could hear the L’ell sitting in quiet meditation, the shifting colors of the L’ell’s mind blending with its own. 

Oyanea and the L’ell were one, newly formed, still learning the weave of each other’s beings, still...meshing. 

Oyanea felt the star growing nearer, felt it’s red-gold glow pulling at its mind with long tentacled fingers tangling at the edges of its awareness. Mislane, the Human’s called it. Oyanea knew it only as energy and mass and color, as singular in its individuality as any of the Oya, as it knew all the universe. And yet. 

And. Yet. 

Oyanea began to feel it, the tingling whiteness, a blip like a pulsar but tighter, more focused in the morass of Mislane’s unruly cacophony. It had not felt this singular energy since...Oyanea searched back into its memories, deep, deeper. 

Space flickered by, unseeable by the human eye, swirling and flaring in it’s own. 

Ah. Found. 

Found.

~*~

~^~

Kessell took the bulk of Jared’s weight so Chad could punch in the security code and get them onto the ship. Chad led the way, down deck into the Axon’s belly to the sick bay.

“Hold him,” Chad said and Kessell propped Jared against the low arch of the doorway, watched while Chad set up the injector and filled the reservoir with stimulant. Jared’s head lolled on Kessell’s shoulder, his eyes vacant and glazed. 

“Idiot.” Chad said under his breath, tapping the injector control to load and pressing it to Jared’s neck. Kessell met his eye over Jared’s shoulder and they sprang apart as the stimulant hit Jared making him jump and gasp, eyes now wide and hard.

Jared gulped air, tipped back against the shielding, one hand on his head, the other holding tight to Chad’s shoulder. Chad and Kessell gave him a minute to focus, exchanged a sympathetic look and took Jared’s arms, helping him sit on the sickbay cot. It was a crappy way to sober up and the hells of it was, the stimulants didn’t stop the hangover. They just took a person straight through from drunk to miserable. Miserable and awake.

Chad snapped his fingers in front of Jared’s wide, unblinking eyes and shook his shoulder.

“Hey, hey, Jared. You with me, man? Need you to focus, here.” Chad said, his voice low but urgent.

Jared shook his head and nodded but it was clear to both of them he needed a few moments. 

“Aran, what’s your location?” Kessell said into his sync. 

There was a moment of silence and then a short burst of shipboard static.

“I’m on the bridge.” Aran replied. “I have you in sickbay. I’m on my way down.”

“Got ya.” Kessell said and clicked off.

Jared groaned and let his head drop into his hands. “I hate you both.” He said and vomited into the waste can by the bed. Chad patted his shoulder.

~*~

[suggestion: you could move the egg bit here - let it flow into this bit, without explaining anything to the reader - the bit later about the history will help them begin to understand the story]

Jensen jolted awake, heart pounding. 

He felt the ache in his back and hips from laying on a hard surface and his jaw throbbed where the cat had punched him. He rolled on to his back, grunting at the tightness of the bonds on his wrists and shifted to accommodate the angle of his arms. He knew in his bones that it was over. The running. The hiding. He turned further over and drew his knees up, his stomach roiling. 

He breathed heavily through his nose, willing his stomach to settle. Across the deck, behind the captain’s console, boots came into view. They were large boots, strapped and tied cross-ways. Military boots. 

Space going ships had long been made of synthsteel. Space going ships, the military axons, great orbital colony class ships, stations and even the odd outpost. Synthsteel didn’t feel like steel. Not that anyone this far out in the arm knew that. Most didn’t know steel was something before it was synth. 

Synthsteel had an odd texture. Not cold, though it was hard. Smoothish, with a slightly tacky drag. The walls of any given ship or station tended to be on the smooth side but the decking was made with a distinctive ridged wave. A well travelled spacer could tell what type of ship he was on by the scuff of his boots on the deck—or in this case, Jensen’s ill-fitting suit.

The wearer came around the navigational console. Jensen blinked into the overhead lights and the Cat came into focus. He looked familiar. Adan? Arcon? No, Aran.

“Aran.” He said, mouth dry, voice cracked. The cat smiled at him, in its way, teeth peeking from beneath its upper lip. 

“Jensen.” The Cat said and knelt by his head, slipping his hands beneath Jensen’s shoulders and lifting him up, turning him so his back was against the nav station. 

“You’re a long way from home, boy.” Aran looked him up and down, the full long length of him, where he sprawled on the deck. He sat back and cocked an eyebrow at him. 

“What happened to you, Jensen?” He plucked at Jensen’s suit with his fingers and pulled a handful of fabric away from his calf, then dropping it, let the excess fabric make his point.

Jensen sighed and cracked what was left of his cockiest smile. “Oh, you know. This and that.” he drawled, and winced at the painful pull it made on his busted lip. He slid his feet closer and tried to push himself further up the console.

Aran smiled, joining in the joke, and then sobered. “This is it, you know. You’re too weak to make it onstation. Unless you want to take Harlan up on his offer?” The Cat stood, looking down. “And I don’t think you want to do that.” The sync in his pocket buzzed and he pulled it out, hitting the release.

“Aran, what’s your location?” Kessell’s distinctive growl cut through the static. 

“I’m on the bridge.” Aran punched the internal array, waited, sync near his ear. He tapped the screen with one claw. “I have you in sickbay. I’m on my way down.” 

“Got ya,” Kessell said, voice fuzzy.

He clicked off the sync, pocketed it and turned to Jensen, eyebrow cocked, wicked grin returning to his lips.

“Think you can walk or do you want me to carry you again?” He said, hip leaning against the array above Jensen’s head.

Jensen snorted. “Fuck you, help me up.” he said and then grimaced at the pull on sore muscles as Aran dragged him to his feet. 

~*~

Nyan Prime was the largest star in the Onyan Arm. Not that it mattered. Onyan was the arm the galaxy forgot. It hosted only two native species, the Ma, a small, fuzzy humanoid species completely earthbound and uninterested in space or its denizens, and the Ixtl, a methane breathing tribal species populating one of the outer planets who’s language was so complex, no one had yet deciphered it. No one had yet survived the surface, either, and whether that was due to the lack of atmo or the animosity of the Ixtl, was anyone’s guess. 

There were eight star systems large enough to support lifebearing planets. Malin hosted the Ma, Iyatal hosted the Ixtl. That left Nyan prime and it’s sister systems clustered in the dense, outer sequence for colonization. 

Before humans had come to the galaxy, before the Paloa and the Teni had finally found the stars, when the Ma and Ixtl where still pre-sapient, the Oy’n found refuge on Nyan’s habitable planets. 

Ny’alin was settle first. Impossible huge, larger than any other lifebearing planet in the arm, larger than Malin and Iyatal combined plus a random pulsar, Ny’alin was a planet of grass. There where oceans, as with all lifebearers, and mountains in the far north and south. But the the main land masses on Ny’alin where parsecs and parsecs of rolling, waving, fragrant grass. 

When the first Oy’n stepped from its ship, after its nav and log certified it safe, it blinked in open wonder at all the green. Its home planet of Oyielle had been one of stone and trees and water falling. N’in Oy’n had known only mountains and the light of three faint suns that left lavender shadows and cool winds. 

N’in put its hand to its eyes and looked up at a sky more blue than the stones of Oyitill, bluer than deep water, so blue it had no word for the color. It stepped down onto loamy soil, green grass brushing its fingertips and it couldn’t help but put its hand out and clasp the grass softly. 

N’in smiled and reached into its pocket, found the small round egg, felt the shimmer of its awareness. 

Within a season, N’in had overseen the building of its city in the northern most reach of grassland in the first rise of mountains on the western continent. Despite its love for the grasses, N’in could only find comfort in a dwelling made of stone. And stone was only found in the highest reaches north. And so it was that N’in built Oy’nan from the blue stones of the Isa mountains. 

At the heart of its city stood a pedestal and under that it had placed a box inside of which was the egg. And then N’in began to write. It wrote everyday for the whole of what was left of its life. Scroll after scroll, as its predecessors had done, with pen and ink, on paper made from the new world’s grass. 

Everyday it set pen to paper it felt the tinge of the egg’s awareness, felt all of the Oya in its sight. 

N’in wrote all it could remember of time before, of the egg and its birth, of what it meant for the Oya and why, despite all of the egg’s bright promises, N’in had rejected Oya and become Oy’n instead. 

The People. 

Separate. 

Apart.

~*~

And so the egg lay fallow, buried in stone on a planet so far from its origin that its presence was nearly indistinguishable from the presence of Oya and Oy’n. The N’in’s writings went with it to its grave and no one knew why there was a stone at the center of the city.

Everyone forgot. 

The egg was quiet.

Until one day, it wasn’t.

~*~

c

~*~

Onyan Arm, Outer Reach, Nyan Prime, Star Ny’alin. Galaxy time 1000 standard days previous.

The current N’in, 4,223’rd of its line, startled to wakefulness. The sky outside its window was the blue black of night with the tinge of indigo at the western horizon. It lay panting, listening with its whole being.


End file.
